DEALING WITH FRUSTRATION TOWARDS IT PROFESSIONS
What are the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan? note: you are required to interview an IS professional/s for your answer ...(at least 3000 words)Frustration come from a a latin word frustratus plural form of frustrari means to deceive, disappoint, frustrate has a come to meaning with all the fields of any professionals can experience.
Frustration towards work cannot be avoided. It's part of man's challenges to face, in order to adopt his fast changing environment. It is a feeling of disappointment and discomfort aroused in the mind of human beings only when something has went wrong with them or they are not able to achieve the goals that they had set for themselves.
In today’s competitive scenario every person has his targets that he wanted to achieve timely and if he is not able to achieve his targets he is frustrated. This frustration can affect the mind in negative way in which person’s thinking power gets slowed down. Frustration led a person a take wrong decisions and as a result of which he is not able to come with innovative ideas.
in the competitive world of information technology, IT professionals has a lot of frustration which includes frustration towards work, human relations and even self-frustration.
in this assignment, we were ask to interview any IT professionals on what his views about work frustration.
Sir Cris from Rhine Marketing Computer Division of Davao City has enumerated some frustration towards IT professions.
Sir Cris is expert in database management and has develop more than 10 systems not mentioned his other works as a system developer.
Below is our interview with him:
1. What does frustration means when pertaining to IT?
For me, frustration means the feeling when you are not satisfied with your work and the user of your system is not satisfied with what they had seen in your develop system. IT professionals like me are frustrated with how are we going to come up with a good and user-friendly system that our client will like.
This frustration can sometimes affect us but we have to face it because its a part of our work.
2. What are those frustration that you have encounter in your field?
There are a lot of frustration in our field. Motly this frustration are destructive to us. When we develop our system who have to deal with this frustration.
a. Frustration towards deadline - we got frustrated when we are only given short period of time to develop a big system. This may sometimes leads to overtime but it can be handle when you know how to plan your work.
b. Frustration towards clients - some clients are not open-minded with the trends of technology now a days. People are so frustrated with computers that products and services that make things simpler and more reliable have a huge market. When some hear about computer, they always said that it is a machine of possibility. When errors occur during their usage they got disappointed and directly address their blame to the developer of the system.
c. Frustration towards work environment - Some of our biggest frustrations in life can come from our work environment. It might be work that is unfulfilling, co-workers that we have difficulty getting along with, or demanding organizational structures that seem to strip us of our time and suffocate our passion and creativity. We so often refer to this complex and stressful situation with a blanket term like "career burnout."
d. Frustratioon towards work competition - IT is very stressful career than it seems from outside. Peer Competition and stiff deadlines means long working hours. Some clients wanted an IT professional with low work cost. Someone they can afford to hire. But some low work cost developer are fresh IT graduates. We have to deal with it. Its part of the competition.
e. Frustration towards proving yourself among everyone - Firstly the feeling of frustration is aroused in human beings when they are not able to achieve the targets that they had set for themselves. Secondly the feeling of frustration is aroused when they compare themselves with others and find that they are lacking behind while others had made a rapid progress but they had remained where they were earlier. This causes frustration in them. When the people misinterpret their capabilities and set those targets which are far away from their potentials. They just compare themselves with those who are more educated or are equipped with high potential or more resources and then set their target up to those levels where they factually could never reach. And then when they are not able to meet their targets they get frustrated.
f. Frustration towards fast pace technology - the technology of today rapidly changes. As a IT professionals, we have to be updated with the latest programming trends and latest tools to boost our knowledge. It can equip us to be competitive with our chosen careers. It can be an advantage when you have more knowledge that you can apply with any systems you will develop. Without updates, you cannot call yourself an IT professional because it talks about Information. Information nowadays are very essential with all transactions we do everyday. You have to be very careful and equip with how you handle information.
g. frustration towards failed system or project - some got frustrated when during the date of deployment of the system, there are some circumstances that the system fail to run. It is very to stressful to prove your eligibility towards your work when the system you have develop for months can be failed easily.
HOW TO DEAL WITH FRUSTRATION?
Sir Cris told us that work without frustration if impossible. Being inline with all kinds of work has frustration. So be very open-minded in dealing with it.
Here are some tips how to deal with frustration towards work:
a. NEVER QUIT OUT OF FRUSTRATION
Quitting" is another form of giving in to frustration. Appreciate that this is a tough world and we have to be persistent in order to accomplish. Never turn back in midstream. Follow it through to the end.
Consider how many projects you began -- and then gave up -- because you became frustrated and lost patience. Make a list of things you started and quit because they seemed too difficult. Now calculate the disappointment and loss you suffered by not accepting the frustration.
How do we repair this fault? Look at the list of things you've quit. Choose one and resolve to see it through. And for the rest of your life, once you undertake something, resolve never to quit. (Unless you are objectively sure that it's "not worth it" -- i.e. you initially misjudged the amount of effort required relative to the final payoff.)
Every night before going to sleep, check yourself: Where did I gain and where did I lose?
b. MEDITATE
Meditate. Don't meditate on what is bothering you, but the traditional form of meditation. The clearing of your thoughts, your slow breathing and the quiet atmosphere around you. After 10 minutes or longer you'll find that what is really bothering you is
1)Not situation that brought you to this point in the first place or
2)Blown way out of proportion.
c. MULTIPLE SOLUTIONS
You always have options. You just need to brainstorm and figure them out. Tell yourself you need to come up with 8 possible options to what you’re dealing with. Just knowing that you have lots of options will help to make you feel better. You won’t feel like you are trapped in one negative situation. From your list, figure out the best direction and go for it.
d. TAKE ACTIONS
When you get into serious frustration with a problem, you tend not to want to work on it anymore. It’s hard, it’s frustrating, and you’re not getting anywhere. So, anything to avoid having to be in that situation may be far more attractive. Procrastination may start to set in. If you can keep taking steps forwards, you will probably make it past this temporary hump. As Thomas Edison said, “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” and “Surprises and reverses can serve as an incentive for great accomplishment.”
The other thing that can happen is that you start to spend a lot of time worrying. Worrying is a definite way of energy and does not move you in a forwards direction. Only taking action will. Once you start moving forwards again, you will most likely find that you worried for no reason.
e. KEEP AN ACCOMPLISHMENTS LOG
Write down everything you accomplish in a log. If you do it in a monthly format you will be able to see all that you have accomplished in just one month. You may be surprised by how much you have done. If you realize there’s not much on the list, it may open your eyes to the fact that you may be procrastinating more than working or that you are using too much of your energy going in too many directions and that you need to focus more. Hopefully, you will have lots of items on your list then you can see that even though it may not feel like it, you are moving forwards. The log will also help to highlight where you were the most effective and where you need to work harder.
F. FOCUS ON WHAT YOU WANT TO HAPPEN
Go back to the big picture. What is the desired outcome? Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in one problem and trying to solve it that we forget what we were originally trying to accomplish. Try not to ask yourself, “Why did this happen?” Asking questions like that will keep you rooted in the past. It doesn’t offer a solution to the problem. The important thing is knowing the answer to the following two questions:
- What do you want to happen differently this time?”
- What do you need to do in order to get there?
CONCLUSION:
As a IT professional, Sir Cris mentioned that frustration could be destructive or constructive. It depends on how you deal with it. Work frustration is always present. It cannot be taken for granted. You have to deal it with confidence so that it can help you to be optimist. Take work seriously but take frustration as a challenge. Make it as your tool towards self-enhancement.
Be responsible all the time. In IT era, all are expected to be competitive and adaptive towards the fast changing environment. To be part of the growing family of information handler, we must be ready to face challenge that comes our ways.
In school, our lesson teach us on how to be a good planner, a system analyst and a problem solver.
To be an effective IT professionals, be effective, put in four years at a college (or more at a graduate school). This will give you access to some jobs that require credentials, and it will give you a deeper understanding of the field, but if you don't enjoy school, you can (with some dedication) get similar experience on the job. In any case, book learning alone won't be enough. "Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter" says Eric Raymond, author of The New Hacker's Dictionary. One of the best programmers I ever hired had only a High School degree; he's produced a lot of great software, has his own news group, and through stock options is no doubt much richer than I'll ever be.
To be a problem solver, each must be equip with problem solving techniques:
Faust distills Lyles' method for success at problem solving as follows:
1. Define the problem.
Identify what is wrong by including both a cause and an effect in the definition.
Questions to answer:
What is really wrong?
What is happening, or what isn't?
What do we find unacceptable?
2. Define the objective(s).
What is the outcome you want to achieve as a result of solving the problem? This is your objective.
3. Generate alternatives.
This is where solutions lie, so be creative in this step.
How many alternatives can you generate? Don't try to judge them until you have come up with as many alternatives as possible.
4. Develop an action plan.
Use detail. Most action plans for tough problems involve taking several steps over a period of time.
Questions to answer:
Who will do what?
By what date(s)?
How will this be accomplished?
5. Troubleshoot.
Don't get so carried away about your solution that you avoid this step.
Questions to answer:
What could go wrong here?
What could be the side effects?
How can we ensure this plan will work?
Answer these questions before you proceed.
6. Communicate.
Getting information to the right people is key for getting the buy-in to make it a success.
Questions to answer:
Which individuals or groups might affect the success of your action plan?
Who will be impacted by it, and therefore who needs to be informed about it?
Who will communicate with affected parties?
7. Implement.
Carry out the plan and monitor its implementation.
Questions to answer:
Who will monitor the plan?
Who is accountable for each part of the solution?
What will be the consequences for failure to meet the plan?
Problem Solving vs. Decision Making
When you are using a systematic approach to sort out issues facing your company, problem solving and decision making can follow nearly the same process.
"In problem solving, the first step is to define the problem. The second step is to set the objectives or define desired outcomes," explains Faust.
"In decision making, the first step is to identify the desired outcomes. A systematic decision-making process is pretty much the same as a systematic problem-solving method."
But TEC speaker Mike Murray reminds us that -- in his view -- they are not the same thing, and should be approached separately.
"The mental processing to create the diversity needed for problem-solving is different from 'deciding,'" he says. "The word 'decide' comes from a root word that means 'to kill.' What you don't want to do is mix problem solving -- which is creating alternatives -- with decision making, which is killing alternatives."
REFERENCES:
http://www.aish.com/sp/48w/48956756.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_2202773_deal-frustration-overwhelming-fear-failure.html
http://www.life-with-confidence.com/frustration.html
http://igotgas.blogspot.com/2007/10/seven-steps-to-successful-problem.html
ipinaskil ni TINE JANE @ 8:07 PM
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